In 1990, the Children’s Television Act was launched to lower the number of ads that a network could direct toward children during cartoons. This was the beginning of the demise of cartoons on network television that would culminate with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which substantially regulates children’s television. This would impact network programming throughout the 2000s, but before that, the networks gave kids an explosion of new original content.
Some of the most memorable original content could be found on Kids’ WB. Let’s take a look at the network’s seven best ’90s cartoons!
Histeria!
Histeria! was created by Tom Ruegger, noted developer of the Steven Spielberg shows Animaniacs and Freakazoid! It was basically Animaniacs with a historical twist and had similar humor- pop culture references, fourth wall breaking, slapstick, and musical numbers. The show ran for 52 episodes on Kids’ WB.
Histeria! would take historical figures and caricature them with modern celebrities, with the idea being to create analogies using known personalities. The show would also sing educational songs to the tune of known songs. Unfortunately, it went over budget and was not able to produce the originally planned 65 episodes the creators intended. It would reuse footage with different timing to match newly recorded audio and non-educational segments used as filler.
